In Colorado, recent state department mergers brought in new accountants, which meant a new look at the books. That new look revealed a $32 million bookkeeper error. Read more about it in this very short item in the Denver Post. Or, a longer item in the Durango Herald, which focuses on how the budget snafu might end the building of a regional office.
 |
|
| bog turtle |
Actually, “Where are the turtles crossing the road and getting hit by cars?” is the focus of a Massaschusetts citizen science research project, and it is one of several turtle research projects going on in this year of the turtle. For more info, read this article on the Massachusetts turtle road-crossing project in the Springfield Republican.
Here are seven other sources of information on turtles and turtle research:
Maryland Amphibian and Reptile Atlas (MARA), a five year project that began in 2010 and will end in December 2014.
The USA Turtle Mapping Project is being run by the US Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station. It is focusing on seven species of freshwater turtles and tortoises to find out their current ranges.
Not surprisingly, PARC, the creator of Year of the Turtle has a list on its Web site of turtle citizen science projects. It’s a PDF. Here are some of the US-based land- or freshwater turtle projects on the list that aren’t already mentioned:
Blanding’s Turtle Research – Great Meadows, Massachusetts
Gopher Tortoise Tracker – Volusia County, Florida
Lake George Turtle Monitoring Program – Lake George, New York
North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences Neighborhood Box Turtle Watch
Western Pond Turtle Presence, Absence Monitoring Project -Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties, California
Texas Turtle Watch
Another resource on the PARC Year of the Turtle site is an Excel spreadsheet of 87 relocation, reintroduction, translocation, and headstarting projects. Turtles make up more than half of these projects, the rest are for other reptiles and amphibians. The idea, the site says, is to allow scientists running similar projects to get inside information on what worked and what didn’t so future projects can build on the past.
When it comes to turtles, the news is pretty bad, but it’s not all bad news. In June so many diamondback terrapins headed upland from Jamaica Bay in New York City that a runway at Kennedy Airport was closed. Here’s a news story, and background information from the journal Science.
We don’t normally cover research outside the US, but since we gave wildfires in the West so much coverage earlier this year, and because it is the year of the turtle here’s an exception. A paper in the journal Biological Conservation says that a species of tortoise in Spain can withstand wildfires every 30 years or so and still maintain its population levels. Read an article about the study in Science Daily, or the whole paper in Biological Conservation (or rather, read a free abstract and pay for the whole paper).
Finally, don’t forget our mini round-up of box turtle data earlier this year. You can find that post here.
Photo: Box turtle Credit: Laura Perlick, courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife
st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
At the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, outreach coordinator Marion Larson was tipped off to Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation’s (PARC) Year of the Turtle by state turtle biologist Lori Erb, who is an active PARC member.
You may think that 2011 is the year of the rabbit. And in the Chinese zodiac, it is. But 2011 is also the year of the turtle, as designated by Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (PARC). The goal is to spread the word about the worldwide risk to turtle species. According to PARC information, 40 percent of turtle species worldwide are threatened with extinction.
Illustration: PARC’s Year of the Turtle logo
The islands of Hawaii have no native deer, so, you might think, that corner of paradise would be free of the deer over-population problems that plague most of the country, particularly those parts of the country where there are white-tail deer. You would be wrong, of course. Axis deer (native to India) were introduced to Hawaii, and deer over-population problems have ensued. Read more about the situation in the Maui News.
We’re reporting this just in case you thought that taking a job in Hawaii would get you away from deer management issues.
Axis deer are also naturalized in Texas and Florida. Read a species description from the Mammals of Texas.
Please note the revision to the earlier version of this post. Changes are in blue.
About a month ago, according to the New York Times, top state wildlife agency officials in Nevada, Colorado, Idaho and Wyoming asked the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to take the lead in coordinating efforts to conserve the remaining greater sage grouse population, since more than half of the greater sage grouse’s remaining habitat is on BLM land. (Read the NYT article here.)
At the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’ summer conference earlier this month, BLM more or less agreed to that role, saying that, “In response to requests from state and local governments to facilitate ways to conserve greater sage-grouse and protect its habitat” it is putting together a strategy for greater sage grouse conservation that will emphasize partnerships and agreements between stakeholders. (Read the BLM announcement here.)
The BLM’s announcement breaks greater sage grouse habitat into two sections: an eastern section where the biggest threat is energy development (oil, gas and wind) and a western section where the greatest threats are invasive species (which other sources say is primarily cheatgrass), and wildfires. (Read the further info on the plan provided by BLM here.)
The NY Times article says that the BLM plan uses Wyoming’s “core area” strategy as its base. This strategy says that only five percent of the land can be developed within four miles of a known greater sage grouse lek (or breeding area). (Read Land Letter’s article on Wyoming’s “core area” strategy here.) And yes, that restricts development on some 15 million acres in Wyoming.
A BLM spokeswoman said that it is more accurate to say that the BLM plan is “informed” by the Wyoming plan. Different strategies will be put in place in different locations, depending on on-the-ground factors. She says that the strategy is a framework, not a document. The specifics are still evolving.
Read the articles, including this one in the Sacramento Bee, for more info on the greater sage grouse’s bid for listing under the Endangered Species Act (it was deemed warranted but precluded, which is now known, confusingly, as being a “candidate” species) and how the continued threat of its listing is driving this conservation activity.
Check out these articles from WyoFile, which give a lot more detail than was available when we first posted this news:
An article about Wyoming’s management plan.
An article about whether or not sage grouse will be listed as endangered species.
Photo: Greater sage grouse by Stephen Ting. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service.
 |
| U.S. Drought Monitor |
Drought conditions are beyond “extreme” and into “exceptional” in Texas and parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Kansas. Earlier this year we focused on the impacts of floods and fires on wildlife regionally, now let’s focus on the drought.
In Texas, one concern is species that might be endemic to a single spring-fed pool. As the water level in that pool declines, so does hope for that species. Here’s info from the Texas Dept. of Parks and Wildlife.
As in the stories of the spring floods, the drought is driving wildlife closer to developed areas and humans. And as with the spring floods, wildlife rehabilitators are leaping into the fray to save animals they fear are at risk. Articles like this one, describe the problem through the rehabilitators’ eyes, but lack the balance that the opinion of a state wildlife biologist would add. Find another, similar story here.
In Kansas, the Salina Journal says that near rivers, the number of insects, birds and mammals has been reduced by 50 to 80 percent because the animals either move, die or go into estivation, a sort of hibernation. The article also mentions fish kills in dry rivers. Read more here.
Map: U.S. Drought Monitor, US Dept. of Agriculture. Updated each Thursday.
